NEW YORK — Mayoral candidates Brad Lander and Andrew Cuomo tussled at the second Democratic primary debate Thursday evening over the former governor’s description of immigrants — an emotional flashpoint as protests over ICE arrests grip cities around the country.
Zohran Mamdani, who is trailing in second place behind Cuomo in most polls, also went after the former governor repeatedly for mispronouncing his name.
And the former New York governor returned fire, insisting the 33-year-old Mamdani is too young and inexperienced for the difficult job of running the nation’s largest city.
The clashes revealed cleaner lines of attack against Cuomo a week after the first debate — as well as how candidates hoping to shrink Cuomo’s polling lead are seizing every opening, big and small, in an effort to weaken the frontrunner in the final days of the Democratic primary.
Lander didn’t relegate his broadsides against Cuomo to one topic. He honed in on the sexual harassment allegations against the former governor — which state Attorney General Letitia James concluded in a report and Cuomo denies — and his management of the MTA.
“The MTA goes through a rigorous contracting process,” Cuomo responded. “They should never have hired illegal immigrants, if it is true.”
“What did you call them?” Lander, the progressive city comptroller, quickly challenged.
“If anyone was undocumented, or they didn’t pay the proper wages, I had nothing to do with it,” Cuomo said, rephrasing with a term viewed as typically more acceptable in the city.
Lander carried on with his targeting of Cuomo. “You cheated them out of the prevailing wages they were due and the health care they were due.”
Mamdani, a state assemblymember, separately ticked off the record that Cuomo’s critics say disqualify him from returning to power, including the sexual harassment allegations that forced him from the statehouse in 2021.
But Mamdani’s focus on the pronunciation of his name appeared intended to spotlight how some supporters of Cuomo have cast the Muslim immigrant as an outsider.
“I have never had to resign in disgrace. … I have never hounded the 13 women who credibly accused me of sexual harassment. I have never sued for their gynecological records,” Mamdani said. “And I have never done those things because I am not you, Mr. Cuomo. And furthermore, the name is Mamdani, M-a-m-d-a-n-i, you should learn how to say it, because we’ve got to get it right.”